


First Contact

by FettsJetts



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Day One: First Contact, F/M, Turian Week 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 03:12:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11797233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FettsJetts/pseuds/FettsJetts
Summary: Saren and Shepard share a moment that marks one of many.Written for day one of tumblr Turian Week 2017!





	First Contact

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't exactly first meeting or anything, but its a very important first for both Saren and Shepard.
> 
> (Also this Shepard has both War Hero and Sole Survivor backgrounds)

In the mirror, someone that was not Shepard stared back. The war had torn Shepard apart, and the gaunt and empty green eyes that looked back were not her own. She was a shell, a different kind of Husk created by the Reapers. 

If this is what they wanted from her, they succeeded. If they wanted her broken and torn apart, this was it. Her body ran on autopilot when she wasn't fighting, and where her skin wasn't bruised, she was pale, almost translucent. 

This war was sucking every bit of life from her. If the Reapers didn't kill her, she'd die of exhaustion and maybe even starvation. She didn't have the time to eat, to sleep. Fuck, she barely had time to shower and change her bra and underwear. She closed her eyes, and sighed heavily, her exhaustion hitting her harder than it ever had.

When she opens them again, Saren is looking at her in the mirror, standing behind her. 

"Saren." She breathes, trying to manage a pitiful smile. Its genuine, because its Saren she's smiling at, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. No emotion did anymore. The only emotion her eyes showed anymore was stress. He stares at her for a great while, his mandible twitching with each inhale of breath. She can't read his features, or his sub-vocals, so they just stare. 

She knows what he's thinking. He can see her body. The new scars, the deep purple bruising that cover unimaginably large patches of skin, and just how thin she'd gotten. The muscle mass she'd tried so hard to get. She'd been able to beat Vega's pull up record with ease a few months ago. But now she wasn't sure. And Saren just stared. Maybe he was waiting for her to speak, but she was waiting for him to speak. She wasn't sure she could speak without breaking down. Screaming for this to stop, screaming because she couldn't take it anymore. 

The entire galaxy counted on her, and her alone. They counted on her for strength, for support. Liara had counted on her to save her homeworld and she had failed. Garrus and Saren and Victus counted on her to save their homeworld, and she was trying her damndest. Wrex and Grunt needed their people to live to fight in the world, and she'd done so, but only by the skin of her teeth. She was failing, and miserably slow. 

She'd been too weak to save everyone. Thane had died before her, and Legion had fallen, sacrificed themselves for the Geth and Quarian alliance. The Batarians lost an entire planet in ashes, because of her, and she had shown no remorse at the time.

She was a monster. Now she just finally looked like one. 

Shepard turns around to face Saren, looking up at him with the blankest of stares. She's not sure what he's going to say. Would he yell at her for taking such horrible care of herself? Tell her she wasn't try hard enough to stop this world? Tell her that he regretted ever loving a terrible and horrible human being such as her.

"Shepard." He whispers instead. He rests on her cheek, and then pulls her into his chest, placing his mouth plates to her hair in a kiss.

And she breaks. 

She cries, and cries. She screams into his chest, and hand balling up in the fabric. 

It was the first contact she'd had since the start of the war that wasn't a punch, or a pat on the back that was always just a little too rough. No, Saren loved her, and he was telling her it was okay. Telling her it was okay to cry, okay to feel like a failure. She was human, she was an organic. She wasn't perfect, and that showed that she had the upper hand over the Reapers. 

Her sobs make her body shake as she curls into Saren's warm body, and he accommodates, hugging her tightly, not letting go. She need this, need to let everything out, let everything go. The galaxy had put far too much on her shoulders, and Saren understood, and he was going to take care of her better than she took care of herself.

"Come to bed, Alex. Please. Sleep." Shepard nods against him, and allows him to pick her up effortlessly, and carry her to their bed. He laid with her for several minutes, and let her finish her crying. 

And then she slept.

**Author's Note:**

> This is short, but I do not care, okay, this was a pain in the ass or work and figure out, because I get feels about how shitty Shepard must feel in ME3. 
> 
> Anyway. Yeah.
> 
> Happy Turian Week.


End file.
